Andy Shaw: Legislative reform scorecard – hits and misses

The Illinois General Assembly’s action — and inaction — resembles a grab bag gift or the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box. You never know what you’re going to get or if you’ll like it.

So it’s no surprise that when the curtain came down on the spring session in Springfield last month, the audience was left with a few satisfied smiles, a few disappointed frowns and one gasp of exasperation.

Lawmakers passed a budget but refused to extend the temporary income tax or cut spending, so the budget is “balanced” with smoke and mirrors and there’s not enough revenue to fund existing programs or pay the bills.

They approved a measure that allows Chicago to start tackling its pension crisis but stiffed a similar request from Cook County.

And high-stakes issues, including gaming expansion and the ultimate fate of the aforementioned income tax, remain on hold until after the November election.

Efficiency, transparency and accountability proposals that watchdogs such as the Better Government Association weighed in on are also a mixed bag. Some wins:

* Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, and Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, passed a “smart streamlining” bill that should eliminate a few of Illinois’ nearly 7,000 units of government and save tax dollars. The legislation facilitates the consolidation or dissolution of small, obscure taxing bodies. It’s a little victory in the epic battle against bureaucratic bloat.

* The General Assembly adopted a pair of measures that should help uncover potential conflicts of interest involving state grant recipients and charter school operators. The goal is to prevent the kind of troubling conflicts that permeated the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative’s anti-violence grants and the United Neighborhood Organization’s charter school construction contracts.

* The legislature also approved a same-day voter registration pilot program for the Nov. 4 election. Reform groups view same-day registration as a key to boosting election-day turnout, which was an abysmal 16 percent for the March primary.

The not-so-good news is that several worthy streamlining initiatives stalled in Springfield. The one with the greatest potential effect would have empowered every county board in Illinois to consolidate some of its units of government, a game-changing power only Du Page has currently. Another proposal would have permitted townships with fewer than 15 miles of roads to eliminate their highway commissioner.

Last, but not least, the really bad news: On the all-important issue of government transparency, lawmakers took a giant step backward with uncharacteristic speed. A weakening of the Freedom of Information Act breezed through both chambers in a single week in May.

Motivated by suburban government complaints about the strain of responding to FOIA requests, lawmakers passed House Bill 3796, which gives municipalities additional time to respond to so-called “voluminous” requests from citizens and allows them to charge requesters up to $100.

The extra time is not a deal breaker, but the fees are arbitrary and unreasonably high, which seriously undermines the ability of citizens to access the public information they’re entitled to.

Thankfully, Gov. Pat Quinn gave “ugly” a facelift by vetoing the bill on Friday, which is what the BGA, other reform groups and the attorney general’s office had asked him to do. So transparency is once again presentable, and the overall scorecard looks pretty good.

Andy Shaw is president and CEO of the Better Government Association. Email him at atashaw@bettergov.org.